Is Half-Life 2 really as good as people claim it to be?

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Ketzal
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Is Half-Life 2 really as good as people claim it to be?

#1 Post by Ketzal »

First of all, I'm sorry if this is not the appropriate board for this.

Second of all, I'M NOT ABOUT TO TRASH HALF-LIFE 2, for any die-hard fans here on the forums. I just had an interesting reflection on this game and wanted to share it.

Basically, I just recently bought Half-Life 2 off of Steam a few weeks ago and played it for the first time. I know, pretty late to the party, but hey! Better late than never, right?

So, I played through the game, I enjoyed it immensely, and for some reason I wanted to see how reviewers saw the game. I thought it was pretty awesome, but it's still kind of neat to see what other people say about it. Then I come across this:

http://www.techspot.com/community/topic ... iew.17165/

Yeah. "Most negative Half-Life 2 review".

And make no mistake, this guy DUMPS on the game and what he considered pretty poor or not very well-developed aspects of the game. That is, the AI, the linear structure of the levels, a lack of truly destructible environments, among other things.

Looking at the first part of the review, I was ready to just close the window. He seemed to be doing one of those "I'm gonna exaggerate the hell out of how bad this game is and how stupid the critics are who praised it!" acts where he goes overboard with describing how crappy the game is without actually saying why it sucked.

But then I looked further into the review, and I honestly think he made some valid points. There were times where I thought the AI was pretty freaking stupid, and although I never saw any of the hype or headlines about the game, I knew the game was praised for its realistic physics and environments. Apparently it was posted that there was a lot of destructibility to these environments...but I never really experienced that myself. Everything seemed pretty solid and indestructible, aside from breakable crates and movable barrels. Also, there really isn't anything that the player decides in this game. You follow a path, you shoot bad guys, you follow the path again. So, to sum it up, I agree with what this guy was criticizing about the game.

Now before I get mauled, I DON'T THINK HALF-LIFE 2 IS A BAD GAME. Just because these mechanics didn't work as well as they were apparently advertised doesn't mean that the rest of the game didn't work out beautifully. I still loved the different segments, the various weapons you could use, the characters, plot, and specific moments like (SPOILERS) where your gravity gun becomes supercharged and you get to fling soldiers around like ragdolls (END SPOILERS).

To sum this whole post up (For TL;DR people), critic writes a bad review on Half-Life 2, I just played it and think it's an amazing game, yet I agree with the critic on some of the points he made about it.

What do you guys think? What does Half-Life 2 mean to you? Is it groundbreaking, thought-provoking...a waste of time? Do you think the critic made some valid points in that article, or is he full of crap? I'm just curious.

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Re: Is Half-Life 2 really as good as people claim it to be?

#2 Post by Envy661 »

Eh... It's kind of meh, IMO. But then again, I don't really care for Team Fortress 2 either, and while the mechanics of portal itself were cool, as a game, it was just a rather boring puzzle game...
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Re: Is Half-Life 2 really as good as people claim it to be?

#3 Post by HeckobA »

I really liked it. Their repeated use of physics in simple puzzles was kind of just an excuse to say "Hey look! Physics! It's like in real life!" but for good reason, since at the time it was amazing. Nothing particularly fancy nowadays though. The fact that that doesn't stop it from still being fun even now says something though. I recently replayed it (and I'm currently playing Episode 1 again) and while it isn't quite as fun now as it was back when it still had the wow factor, it still is.

Random thought: I remember how scary Ravenholm used to be, while now I'm pretty unfazed by it.
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Re: Is Half-Life 2 really as good as people claim it to be?

#4 Post by Ketzal »

HeckobA wrote:Random thought: I remember how scary Ravenholm used to be, while now I'm pretty unfazed by it.
See, I went in to Ravenholm thinking that I was going to be completely freaked out by it, but....not really. I mean, the atmosphere was intimidating, the infinite spawning zombies in some of the areas made it a little tense, and I FREAKING HATED THOSE ****ING POISON HEADCRABS!

But otherwise I wasn't all that scared. The fast zombies DID make me jump a couple of times though >_>

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Re: Is Half-Life 2 really as good as people claim it to be?

#5 Post by anonfox123 »

Fubar de Lizzy wrote:
HeckobA wrote:Random thought: I remember how scary Ravenholm used to be, while now I'm pretty unfazed by it.
See, I went in to Ravenholm thinking that I was going to be completely freaked out by it, but....not really. I mean, the atmosphere was intimidating, the infinite spawning zombies in some of the areas made it a little tense, and I FREAKING HATED THOSE ****ING POISON HEADCRABS!

But otherwise I wasn't all that scared. The fast zombies DID make me jump a couple of times though >_>
It wasn't as scare as games that try, almost exclusively, to be scary, but my first play-through left me very rattled. The screaming of the ones on fire was unnerving, then I got lost, circled around an area several times, and mob after mob of zombies kept on re-spawning. And oh, yeah, my first experience with a poison headcrab was getting reduced to 1 HP from 100, then having a zombie smash out the window right behind me and punt me off the ledge where I fell and died. Ever since, I have always taken excessive measures to take them out whenever I hear that hissing they make. >_<


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Re: Is Half-Life 2 really as good as people claim it to be?

#6 Post by HeckobA »

I've gotten all the achievements ^^
...ok yeah I did use a guide for the cache locations, but do you know how annoying it is when you finish the game with every one found but for one? That happened before.
You should also note that the first time I played it I was still 13, which does change things a bit.
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Re: Is Half-Life 2 really as good as people claim it to be?

#7 Post by NothingIsSure »

Fubar de Lizzy wrote: Also, there really isn't anything that the player decides in this game. You follow a path, you shoot bad guys, you follow the path again.
Indeed - that's how most FPS games have worked before Bioshock ("Would you kindly...?") was released. Half Life 2 is more like an interactive action movie with a lot of zombie shooting, bad guys, UFO's, where the story is just a background (btw. VERY interesting "background", all those references to first HL and Portal ...).
However - every new Call of Duty game is the same "You follow a path, you shoot bad guys, you follow the path again.", but now with more explosions ;>

I remember, that when I had played HalfLife2 for the first time, almost ten years ago - I was stunned, I've never played so good game before. It made me forgot about every other game ... and for a few days I was playing it over and over again.



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Re: Is Half-Life 2 really as good as people claim it to be?

#8 Post by anonfox123 »

NothingIsSure wrote:
Fubar de Lizzy wrote: Also, there really isn't anything that the player decides in this game. You follow a path, you shoot bad guys, you follow the path again.
Indeed - that's how most FPS games have worked before Bioshock ("Would you kindly...?") was released. Half Life 2 is more like an interactive action movie with a lot of zombie shooting, bad guys, UFO's, where the story is just a background (btw. VERY interesting "background", all those references to first HL and Portal ...).
I quite like how they did the story. Not a single cutscene, you could just run about and dick around even as characters were talking. And then the little snippets of speech from NPC's in passing seemed to say a whole lot too.
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